An Efficiency Data Envelopment Analysis Model Reinforced by Classification and Regression Tree for Hospital Performance Evaluation

As changes in the medical environment and policies on national health insurance coverage have triggered tremendous impacts on the business performance and financial management of medical institutions, effective management becomes increasingly crucial for hospitals to enhance competitiveness and to strive for sustainable development. The study accordingly aims at evaluating hospital operational efficiency for better resource allocation and cost effectiveness. Several data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based models were first compared, and the DEA-artificial neural network (ANN) model was identified as more capable than the DEA and DEA-assurance region (AR) models of measuring operational efficiency and recognizing the best-performing hospital. The classification and regression tree (CART) efficiency model was then utilized to extract rules for improving resource allocation of medical institutions.